Tag Archives: Cindy Yergler

5 tips to get picky eaters to try veggies

Arranged Vegetables Creating a FaceGot picky eaters at home? Are you picky too?
“Experience has taught me that kids and adults can actually learn to like a wide variety of food; it’s all about familiarity and role modeling,” says SIU dietician Cindy Yergler. Yergler says that the more we are exposed to a wide range of food tastes in a series of positive experiences, the more foods we will learn to enjoy.  “Parenting held many challenges for me but by using certain strategies, my now adult children (one a registered dietitian) learned to eat and enjoy a variety of food.”
Yergler recommends parents of picky eaters follow these steps:
1. Be a role model – Take a look at yourself and what you are eating.  If your diet consists of ramen noodles and fast food, expect your children to be interested in the same.  Children mimic the adult role models in their lives, in all areas – including food choice. They may not do what you say, but they will often do what you do!
2. Get kids involved in food – Buy a cookbook with simple, kid-friendly recipes that include veggies and fruits. Select a recipe together and shop for the ingredients.
3. Be adventurous – Plan an outing to the farmers market or a country farmstand to purchase a new vegetable or fruit.  Allow your child to select a new “vegetable or fruit of the week.” Together, prepare the food item and have a family taste test!
4. Try and repeat – Encourage sampling of all food and do so with repeated exposure. Allow a very sensitive child to politely dispose of the bite into a napkin if it is too distasteful to swallow.  It will be important to repeat this process with the same food several times.  Eventually, many children (and adults) will actually enjoy the food.
5. Mix it up – Combine the “new food” with a familiar food.  For example, mix zucchini with corn, asparagus with carrots or raspberries with sliced bananas. Before long the entire family will be eating better and enjoying meal time more.

reference, Appetite Journal, October 2010. 

-rb, cy

Going kookoo for coconut oil? Don’t do it!

Half Coconut and Flower on Bamboo Mat --- Image by © Royalty-Free/CorbisSo you consider yourself a well-educated, forward-thinking, health-minded person, and as such, you are definitely on board with the greatest addition to your pantry: coconut oil. After all, according to internet claims, Pinterest and the advice of your well-meaning neighbor, coconut oil will cure thyroid disease, obesity, cancer and heart disease, right!?
Well, maybe not…The medical evidence about the benefits of coconut oil is not totally convincing since most of the claims developed from personal stories rather than actual medical evidence, according to SIU registered dietitian Cindy Yergler.
Let’s check the facts.
Coconut oil is a highly saturated fat. Because it is a plants product, it does not contain cholesterol (cholesterol only comes from animal products; think animals with legs). For this reason, some researches do believe coconut oil could be better than butter and trans fats like margarine or solid shortening, but these claims are still being studied. The bottom line: saturated fats, like coconut oil, are not as healthy as liquid vegetable oils, and any type of fat needs to be eaten in limited amounts.
For your best health outcomes, Yergler recommends switching completely from saturated fats to unsaturated fats like olive, soybean, canola or corn oil for your added fat. This does not mean fill your deep fat fryer with peanut oil! It means roast vegetables with small amounts of olive oil, make a vegetable stir fry with measured amounts of peanut or canola oil, use olive oil for bread dipping instead of slathering it with butter or margarine and use cooking oil sprays with non-stick cooking surfaces or grills to prepare delicious meats, poultry and fish. Limit the total amount of fat of any kind that you are eating. At 120 or more calories per tablespoon, fat-laden calories add up fast and too much fat of any kind is not a good thing for our bodies, not even health fats or coconut oil.
-cy, rb